A variety of removable and reusable wall systems are available for use in partitioning a building's interior space. The prior known wall systems each attempt to embody a subset of the overall objects and advantages that the industry seeks in such assemblies, often for a specific building application. The structure of such assemblies range from floor-to-ceiling full height wall partitions to modular-office-cubical-type panel assemblies having partial height walls.
Removable, full height wall partition assemblies are often referred to as “demountable” wall systems. Examples of such systems include the demountable wall systems of Allison (U.S. Pat. No. 5,060,434) and Moreno et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,216,859). Current demountable wall systems are designed separately from the buildings they are used in, and are incorporated separately into the interior space of the building as an accessory, after the building is completed.
Many limitations may be found in prior art demountable wall systems. The component parts of which are inherently sophisticated, complex and intricate. They require custom prefabrication of processed-raw-material-stock. They require elaborate warehousing, stocking, inventoring of numerous parts many of which become obselete over time. Each manufacturer must train and then maintain specialty crews in every major city in order to site assemble, disassemble, and reassemble their particular and unique demountable wall and system. Prior art demountable walls must create specialized custom doors, windows, door and window hardware, electrical, voice and data, plumbing, and the like which together dictate a complex problem prone system. All of the prior art systems have dimensional limitations of height and restricted flexibility in length due to prefabrication. Once a height is selected to fit a certain building it is often not usable in another building because of seemingly minor differences in height or most often in the degree of slope of the floors which the naked eye perceives as level but the demountable wall panels can not tolerate. Prior art wall system manufacturers attempt to overcome this limitation by adding more variety of product sizes which actually magnifies the above limitations because it magnifies the problems associated with complexity, inventoring, obselence, assembly crew training, and ever increasing costs associated with these limitations. The cost of prior art demountable wall systems is very high ($80 to $200 per lineal foot plus accessories compared to standard fixed wall cost of about $22 per lineal foot) and therefore the use of prior art demountable walls is not wide spread. If there were a wide spread use of demountable walls the impact on our environment and non-renewal resources would be very positive because the standard fixed walls do not accommodate reconfiguration. Therefore the standard fixed walls must be demolished and sent to special toxic waste landfills (decomposing gypsum releases a toxic gas) and new walls must be constructed using more of our non-renewal natural resources.
Another limitation of prior art demountable wall and ceiling systems is the resulting seams and gaps that occur between the component panels that make up the walls and ceiling. Architects and designers object strongly to these aesthetically unacceptable and often imbalenced sectioning of the architecture. Prior art demountable walls are limited to interior use, few if any are fire rated nor are they load bearing.
Since commercial buildings, particularly office buildings, are often remodeled to accommodate changing space requirements, tenancy and design tastes, it would be advantageous to have an interior and exterior space partitioning system which allows disassembly and ready reassembly and thus permits the general reuse of the elements of the system. This permits savings in material, and downtime. It would be beneficial to have a demountable wall system that allowed the removal, reuse and relocation of wall system elements, including not only wall panels and studs but also electrical and plumbing elements, and door and window elements. The availability of a wall system embodying such recyclable elements would reduce waste and the cost of altering a building's space.
It is a feature of the present invention that it provides a wall and ceiling system which permits the general reuse of the elements of the system, thereby reducing material wastes and the cost of altering a building's space. The present invention overcomes most if not all of the aforementioned limitations to the prior art. Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will become apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The features and advantages of the invention may be realized by practicing the combinations and steps described herein and particularly pointed out in the appended claims.